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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of observation and the appreciation of 

 scenery. An artist sees so much more 

 in a landscape than an ordinary ob- 

 server, that he is justified in thinking 

 that the ordinary observer scarcely sees 

 anything at all. Darwin all his life bit- 

 terly regretted that he had not learned 

 drawing when young; yet drawing -is 

 quite as easily learned by a boy as writ- 

 ing, and gives him the power of show- 

 ing in a picture much that can not be 

 described in words. Darwin also con- 

 stantly lamented that he had not over- 

 come his repugnance to dissecting, so as 

 to practice the art and gain direct access 

 to much valuable evidence. Yet, not- 

 withstanding defects in his equipment, 

 he rose, by what he calls sheer dogged- 

 ness, to ascertaining through observa- 

 tion and thought one of the greatest 

 laws of organic life. Tested by verbal 

 standards, this great man would not 

 have stood high, llis verbal memory 

 was poor. He always found it difficult 

 to express himself clearly and concise- 

 ly, yet this very difficulty was benefi- 

 cial in making him think long and in- 

 tently about every sentence, leading 

 him to correct errors in observation 

 and reasoning. He had the strongest 

 disbelief that a classical scholar must 

 write good English— he thought the 

 contrary to be the case. Of literary 

 style as an indulgence in power over 

 words he evidently thought little ; 

 while he acknowledged the vividness 

 of Carljie's pictures of men and things, 

 he questioned tlieir truth. Darwin, 

 by his life, more convincingly than by 

 what he said, demonstrated the su- 

 preme value in education of address- 

 ing the senses and the reasoning pow- 

 ers rather than the verbal memory. 

 Few boys are destined to be natural- 

 ists, and none may hope to be as great 

 as Darwin ; yet the lesson of his life 

 is eloquent to every one surrounded by 

 a world of things to bo observed, of 

 testimony to be elicited and sifted, of 

 gaps in known truth to be bridged and 

 filled. Because in times past the area 



of known truth has been vastly over- 

 estimated, and the value of language in 

 the expression of such truth equally 

 overestimated, written creeds, theologi- 

 cal, political, legal, and educational, 

 have on all sides blocked human ad- 

 vance. 



Apropos of Cambridge and progress 

 in the modernization of its curriculum, 

 it is pleasant to read the recent remarks 

 of Professor Seeley, who occupies the 

 chair of Modern History at Cambridge. 

 On the 10th of January, at the Con- 

 gress of the National Society of French 

 Professors residing in England, he said ; 

 " A crisis in the history of English 

 education is upon us, in that classi- 

 cism education is once more attacked, 

 and the affirmation strongly made that 

 the interests of practical life must no 

 longer be neglected in our educational 

 system, and that Englishmen must be 

 prepared at school to compete in com- 

 merce and in business with their foreign 

 rivals, and for this purpose they will 

 have to renounce in part that training 

 in Latin and Greek which former gen- 

 erations of Englishmen have received. 

 The assertion is made more peremp- 

 torily, more impatiently, than ever be- 

 fore. I am myself by breeding a classi- 

 cist of the classicists. In aim I am most 

 heartily at one with the classicists. At 

 the same time I think that in taking up 

 their position they disf)lay a spirit of 

 blind, unreasoning conservatism, such 

 as in politics died out with Lord Eldon. 

 What is to be done if the claims of prac- 

 tical life and those of culture are radi- 

 cally incompatible ? I should say that 

 the Master of Balliol laid the best basis 

 for such an arrangement when he point- 

 ed out that French might be treated as 

 a stepping-stone to Latin. 



"Let us give up the preposterous 

 doctrine that Latin must be learned in 

 order to learn French, and let us teach 

 French in order to teach Latin. In so 

 doing we do not sacrifice literature to 



